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72-year-old Florida man arrested after admitting he shot a Walmart delivery drone (www.techspot.com)

submitted 4 months ago by godzilla_lives@beehaw.org to c/usnews@beehaw.org

10 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Winn was charged with shooting at an aircraft, criminal mischief damage over $1,000, and discharging a firearm in public or residential property.

Business Insider notes that the FAA doesn't distinguish between a drone and a passenger jet when it comes to attempts to sabotage a commercial aircraft. It means that shooting a drone is classed as a felony and could see perpetrators fined and sent to prison for up to 20 years.

Walmart says it has completed more than 20,000 safe drone deliveries over the last two years, and that it is expanding its drone delivery program for up to 75% of the Dallas-Fort Worth population, covering an additional 1.8 million homes.

In other recent drone news, more police forces are considering using the UAVs in first responder (DFR) programs, in which they are sent to 911 calls ahead of officers to assess a situation. Digital rights group the Electronic Frontier Foundation warns that while this may sound good in practice, the programs can be used for privacy-invading surveillance and over-policing.

My favorite part is that the legal consequences for shooting at a passenger airplane and a fucking Walmart drone could potentially be the same.

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[–] TehPers@beehaw.org 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Discharging a firearm into the sky isn't it. I don't know if I'd classify this as being as bad as shooting at a passenger plane, but the gun probably won't hit a plane 30k ft in the sky anyway, and the missed bullets/pellets (when you inevitably miss the plane or drone) will almost certainly kill someone if they fall on their head. I'd be disappointed if there wasn't a felony charge for doing that.

Whether the drones should be allowed is another question of course, but the potential collateral here can't just be brushed off.

[–] JillyB@beehaw.org 7 points 4 months ago (1 children)

A bullet that comes down has enough energy to kill someone. Shotgun pellets (especially smaller birdshot) would have much less energy when it comes down. That's why skeet shooting is the only kind where you shoot upwards. The terminal velocity of a BB is pretty small.

[–] TehPers@beehaw.org 3 points 4 months ago

Birdshot would do less harm for sure, but that doesn't seem to be what the person in the article used:

When this didn't work, he went inside the home to retrieve his 9mm gun from a safe, came back out, and shot the drone, which was about 75 feet in the air at the time.

Having been skeet shooting, that wouldn't be nearly as bad to be hit by, but firing that off in a random neighborhood still has the potential to damage random people's property and is horrifically irresponsible.

Anyway, I was trying to emphasize that in no world is it acceptable to be firing live rounds in the sky, drone or not. I don't see how shooting a gun into the sky in a neighborhood is worthy of anything less than felony, given the potential damage.